The Paraguayan War: lessons 150 years on

A critical analysis on the causes, consequences and perspectives of the armed conflict which caused the most loss of lives in the history of South America.

The War of the Triple Alliance unfolded 150 years ago was one of the most significant conflicts that South America experienced in its modern history, both because of the amount of engaged countries — Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay —, and the violence displayed, the number of troops deployed, the large number of casualties and the consequences brought to the future of those nations, especially in the case of Paraguay. More recently, different new voices have emerged questioning the official version from a historiographical analysis with solid arguments — particularly on the Argentinian case.

The war was formally triggered at the ending of 1864, after the marshal and president of Paraguay Francisco Solano Lopez deployed a division of the Paraguayan army across Argentinian territory in order to take over the Mato Grosso province of Brazil. The action was a reprisal from the interventionism of the Brazilian empire in the civil war ongoing in Uruguay between the Colorado Party and the Partido Blanco (White Party), the latter of which was supported by the Paraguayan goverment and which in 1865 — after the decisive intervention of Brazil — was completely defeated.

The Paraguayan campaign opened with a success including the capture of the governor of Mato Grasso, but everything would change in a few months, after Argentina, Brazil and the recently "unified" Uruguay, signed the secret treaty known as the Triple Alliance in 1865. As a part of it, the Brazilian empire and the Argentinian government of Bartolome Mitre — who had deceptively promised Solano Lopez to remain neutral — agreed beforehand how they would share the territories they individually disputed with Paraguay, and prepared for the battle.

Although the treaty was signed in 1865, already the previous year — and before any military actions from the Paraguayan government — the British minister in Buenos Aires, Edward Thornton, had gathered representatives from the Colorado sector and the Argentinian and Brazilian commissions in Montevideo, in order to encourage the Uruguayan "pacification" with the involvement of Brazilian militias. This was a fundamental step in supporting the interests of the British crown, which saw Paraguay as a threat and, thus, achieved cornering it between enemies while turning it into a landlocked country without access to the Atlantic ocean.

The Argentinian involvement in the conflict was extremely unpopular and resisted in the interior and especially the shore of the Parana river, whose inhabitants, traditionally federalists — that is, opposed to the centralizing elite of the Buenos Aires harbor — considered the Paraguayans as neighbors and brothers. The situation, in fact, moved many to defect from the army and to disbanding and a new insurrectional wave of different federal chieftains in a large portion of the country, which led to pausing the war for several months.

Finally, after six years of battles and after a staunch and heroic Paraguayan resistance, the majority forces of the Triple Alliance which invaded Paraguay prevailed and, several months after taking over the capital Asuncion — in March of 1870 —, defeated the tenacious marshal Solano Lopez, who continued fighting until the end without ever accepting to surrender.

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The consequences of the havoc were disastrous for Paraguay, and partly explain why it is today one of the countries with the highest rates of poverty (35%) and destitution (25%) in South America, a position that was until recently held by Bolivia.

The consequences of the havoc were disastrous for Paraguay, and partly explain why it is today one of the countries with the highest rates of poverty (35%) and destitution (25%) in South America, a position that was until recently held by Bolivia, a nation which suffered a similar fate to that of Paraguay in the hands of Chile.

Undoubtedly, the most severe of all was the demographic collapse. The numbers are unbelievable: throughout the conflict, the nation lost — by violent deaths, famine or the sending of prisoners as slaves to Brazilian crops fields — between a 60% and 80% of its total male population in reproductive age; what amounts to a genuine genocide. The recovery of the same level of population to that before the war was not achieved until only some 40 or 50 years later.

From a material point of view, the country was forced to give up some 150,000 square kilometers of land, what amounts to a third of its current total territory. And surely so the agricultural, industrial and public infrastructure, such as railways, shipyards and the state-of-the-art Ybycui foundry, were completely destroyed. The economy was in total ruin, and the development of the country was truncated from the roots. On top of it, the Brazilian troops remained occupying territories until 1876 — six years after the end of the conflict —, a time during which Paraguay became a satellite state of the empire of Pedro II.

With the passing of time, first Uruguay and much later Argentina and Brazil — in the decade of the 1940s — condoned the war debt weighing on the shoulders of the Guarani nation. The first two countries also returned the so-called "war trophies", while Brazil still keeps, among others, a large bronze cannon forged with the metal from the bells of Paraguayan churches.

As Norberto Galasso and German Ibañez explain in their article "The war of the Triple Infamy"(1), the official or "mitrist" history, which for a long time was held by the majority of the Argentinian historians, was divided between discarding any interpretation — limiting itself to quoting dates and names of battles with the aim of hiding the shameful massacre — and insisting on the necessity of bringing the "civilizing" component to the supposedly backwards and barbarian Paraguay, the same component which shortly after would be imposed by the general Roca in Patagonia through the extermination of the native peoples who inhabited it.

However Paraguay had little of backwards; on the opposite, after the first half of the 19th century, it could be said to have been the most developed country in the region.

The self-managed model of Paraguay represented a serious threat to the plans of the bourgeoisies of Buenos Aires and Montevideo which, going against the popular interests and to the demerit of the provinces, amassed wealth thanks to the monopolization of the harbors and the indiscriminate financial opening to the British capital.

Since the independence from Spain, in 1811, the successive governments of Jose Gaspar Rodriguez, Carlos Antonio Lopez and his son, Francisco Solano Lopez, maintained a policy of isolation and self-sufficiency which allowed for significant sovereign advancements based on the state regulation of the resources and the economy: the creation of the railways, the telegraph and the national fleet, the growth of the industry, the establishing of compulsory education guaranteed by the state — which offered learning materials and food to children who couldn't afford them —, the distribution of lands, the agricultural reform and the massive encouragement of public works, among others.

This self-managed model of Paraguay represented a serious threat to the plans of the Brazilian imperial regime and of the bourgeoisies of Buenos Aires and Montevideo which, going against the popular interests and to the demerit of the provinces, amassed wealth thanks to the monopolization of the harbors and the indiscriminate financial opening to the British capital, giving away their countries as exporters of raw materials and importers of manufactured products. It was in fact the British capital which collected the greatest benefits from the war, since the four nations involved were buried in debt for several decades to come.

For Argentina and Uruguay, the victory in the war led to the definitive consolidation of the free trade and agroexport model linked to Europe, and the permanent pacification of the popular outbreaks of internal insurrection which refused to accept it. By force of arms, Paraguay too was led to participate in that same system it had offered so much opposition to.

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As it is clear, from the beginning of the tortuous struggle for economic, political and social independence of Latin America, there have been successive attempts — financed and stimulated from overseas and supported by the addicted local bourgeoisies — of finishing with alternative and sovereign models that could have written history in a different way. This is by no means in past tense; the ways of sabotaging changed to adapt to the times, but the efforts for achieving so continue up to today. It should suffice to pay attention to the history of the region through the 20th century, or the current events unfolding in Venezuela.

For that reason, it seems as necessary as ever to remind that the only possible future of stable and sustained development for the countries of the continent, in a globalized and multipolar world, is the joining of forces and joint work for building a powerful, autonomous and solidary block, that is able to relate as equals with the different political actors of the planet. In the building of such an identity, the effort of recognizing, rethinking and recovering the historical hijacking of the past is fundamental, in order to reappropriate it in popular, Latino American and sovereign terms.

Federico Acosta Rainis is an anthropologist from Buenos Aires University (UBA). He has published in independent blogs and magazines and contributes with the editorial team of the Último Round magazine. Besides from research and opinion articles, he writes travel chronicles, stories and poetry.